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POLAND-ELECTION
Poland sets presidential election for May 10
WARSAW, Feb 5, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Poland will hold the first round of its
presidential election on May 10, the speaker of parliament announced on
Wednesday, with incumbent President Andrzej Duda tipped as the favourite.
Despite enjoying a strong lead in opinion polls, surveys suggest that Duda,
who is allied with the governing right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS)
party, is unlikely to clinch a first-round victory.
He is expected to face liberal opponent Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, from the
main opposition Civic Platform party, in a May 24 run-off.
Half a dozen candidates are expected to throw their hats into the ring to
contest round one on May 10, the date announced Wednesday by parliament
speaker Elzbieta Witek.
They include centrist-Catholic newcomer Szymon Holownia, openly gay leftist
MEP Robert Biedron, farmers’ party leader Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and far-
right MP Krzystof Bosak.
The election is overshadowed by a long-running controversy over the PiS
government’s judicial reforms that critics, including the European Commission
and top European judicial bodies, say undermine judicial independence and the
rule of law.
Duda came under fire on Tuesday after he signed into law controversial
legislation aimed at disciplining judges who question the judicial reforms.
Poland’s human rights commissioner and opposition politicians immediately
criticised the move as undermining judicial independence, calling it a first
step in the direction of a “Polexit” out of the EU’s legal order.
In late 2017, the EU launched unprecedented proceedings against Poland over
“systemic threats” posed by the reforms to the rule of law that could see its
EU voting rights suspended.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1925 hrs